The Heart of Azumanga Daioh
by HeartFout
Summary: A series of chronological drabbles expanding what we already know of the girl's school lives. Updated hopefully regularly.
1. Year 1 April 1

Note: Well, like I said in `Melon Drabbles`, I have completely reorganised my fanfiction. This is a series of shorts, each about 100 words, that goes through chronologically the story in the manga, starting at April year 1. Some of my favorite chapters from MD will make an appearence as specials as I go, but mostly this will be just the written version of the four panel strips.

I am also planning an epic crossover with Phoenix Wright where Yomi becomes a defence lawyer after college. Don't know when that will be, as I want it planned out properly. Murders are bloody hard to write....

Anyway. Enjoy. Or not. And please give feedback for improvements.

**THE HEART OF AZUMANGA DAIOH. YEAR 1: APRIL**

**SHOELACE.**

Now remember. Over and under and around. Over and under and around. Over and under and...

"Hey Yomi?" A small yet annoying voice sounded from by the girl's elbow as she changed her indoor shoes for her outside ones. She sighed, crossed her arms and looked down.

"The hell is it Tomo?" She said, staring at the girl, who kept her eyes straight down on the ground.

"Can you help me? I've tied my hands to my shoe..."

**HOW THE HELL?**

Yomi sighed and put her light blue plimsolls back in her student box.  
"Shut up Tomo, and stop pretending. Let's go home already." Yomi turned away from her friend and walked towards the door, stretching her arms and swinging her bag alongside her. Reaching the double doors, she turned back and stared at her friend, who was still crouched over by the shoe lockers.

"Tomo!" She called, getting annoyed now. "Come on idiot, I want to go the long way home to get some more exercise."

The hyperactive girl nodded, and slowly turned on the spot to face Yomi. Her movements were odd, pushing off with her back leg while her front leg, hands still holding onto the shoe and head remaining determinedly bent over her knee.

As Tomo finally reached her upright companion, Yomi put her head in her hands.

"Yomi, I told you, I've-"

"Tied your hands to your foot, yes, I can see." She gave a short moan. "What are we going to do with you?"

"Can you do it quick? These damn laces are cutting off my blood to my hands..."

**KNOTS**

"Damn things." Said Yomi as she reached down to untie Tomo's hands from the shoelaces. "How did you manage to get them on so tight?"

"I dunnoooo" Tomo said, who was starting to become slightly teary eyed from the strings on her hands. "Hurry up Yomi, it really hurts..."

"Oh for-" Yomi continued on, pulling and pushing on stray fragments of the knot.

"Owowow! You made it tighter Yomi!"

"Well just hold still then idiot!"

"You're the idiot!"

"Idiot!"

"Idiot!"

"Excuse me, Yomi-san, Tomo-san?" Asked a very small voice just above Yomi's ear. A small pair of hands gently moved Yomi's out of the way and pulled on a small loop of string in the knot. Tomo sighed in relief as her bounds were loosened slightly, enough to wriggle her hands free. She looked up into the face of her savior.  
"Thanks, Chiyo-chan. I owe ya one."

The small girl smiled and bowed briefly.  
"Think nothing of it! Now, shall we go home?"


	2. Year 1 April 2

**April Year 1 Set 2. **

AN: I'm aiming for around 10-20 of these per month in the Azumanga world. And let me just say, trying to write Azu shorts without Osaka or Kagura is hard....

I really would like feedback with these. Something seems off about them, but I can't work out what...like the writing style seems sort of cliche...

Anyway, enjoy. Or not.

**Sleepy.**

Yukari moaned slightly as she rubbed her head against her desk in the staff room. Black rings of tiredness were forming under her eyes, and a forgotten pencil rolled out of her unresisting hand onto the floor.

Noticing this, Kurosawa grabbed her shoulder and shook her gently awake, or as close as Yukari could get in her current state.

"Honestly Yukari, wake up. You're worse than the students sometimes I swear."

"Bleh? Nyamo, can you please go tell my class they have study hall? I wanna sleep." The PE teacher slapped her own face with her hand.

"Yukari! We haven't even been back at school a month yet!"

Yukari paused for a second, staring at the tabletop.

"Nyamo?"

"Yes?" came the reply, perhaps slightly more curt than really required.

"How long till the weekend?"

"It's Monday. Morning."

A head slammed back into the table and light snoring was heard.

"YUKARI! GET UP!"

**Violence solves...**

The two lifelong friends strode down the hallway, Yukari yawning loudly and without shame as she did so.

"Blegh...just wanna go to bed..."

Stopping suddenly, her friend grabbed her arm and spun her around to look her in the eye. Kurosawa gazed intently into them, noting the almost purple badges around them.

"Neh? Whatcha doing Nyamo?" Yukari asked, slightly unnerved by the sudden invasion of personal space but too sleepy to do anything about it.

"Yukari...have you been sleeping properly recently?" Kurosawa's voice was filled with concern. It was usual for Yukari to be groggy in the mornings, but this was unusual even by her standards.

"Eeeh" Yukari paused and thought about it for a second. "Okay, I guess...not as much as normal though."

Tilting her head, Kurosawa continued her line of questioning.

"How much sleep did you get last night Yukari?"

Giving a shrug, the woman answered "Seven, maybe eight hours?"

A slight pause. Kurosawa's hand swung to her side.

"...five...damn...hours."

"Nyamo, why are you rolling up that book?"

"You...dare....act like this...with seven hours?"

"Nyamo...you're scaring me..."

"Gragh!"

"Aaaaaiiiiii!"


	3. Year 1 April 3

**Snap.**

"Yooooooooooomiiiiiiiiiii." The voice called, droning like a swarm of rather boring bees. The girl struggled bravely on, pen still posed to paper ready to finish this maths question. She gritted her teeth as the noise still continued. "Yooooooooooomiiiiiiiiiii."

It was okay, she could stand this. She just had to focus on her problems, and not-

"Yooooooooooomiiiiiiiiiii."

Not snap her pencil in half in annoyance. She sighed. Tomo, she decided, was taking advantage of her new found freedom given to her by her parents when she became a high school student too much, by coming over to her house almost every day in the evenings.

"Yooooooooooomiiiiiiiiiii."

Tomo owed her a damn pencil.

**Recorded.**

Having replaced her pencil with a fresh one from the pot on her desk, she was almost tempted to look around and see what Tomo was doing, but Yomi thought against it. Attention was what she wanted: hers would be better focused on the quadratic equation she needed to solve here. Time went by without any disturbance from behind her, and she almost hoped the other girl had gone to sleep, or something else had distracted her. Possibly shiny.

"Yooooooooooomiiiiiiiiiii."

That was it. Yomi spun around in her chair and faced Tomo.

Or at least the top of her hair. Tomo was lying face down, possibly asleep, head in a manga book. She turned back, glad Tomo had not seen that she was getting to the taller girl.

"Yooooooooooomiiiiiiiiiii."

"Yooooooooooomiiiiiiiiiii."

"Yooooooooooomiiiiiiiiiii."

"Yooooooooooomiiiiiiiiiii."

"Yooooooooooomiiiiiiiiiii."

"What is it Tomo?"

"Yooooooooooomiiiiiiiiiii."

"Tomo..."

"Yooooooooooomiiiiiiiiiii."

Standing up with enough force to knock her chair over, Yomi strode over to Tomo and lifted her up by the shoulders.

"What." She said, stressing the end of each word, "is. It. Tomo?"

The wild cat gave a weak smile and held up a small tape recorder with a speaker attached. Even as Yomi leaned in for a closer look, she pressed the play button.

"Yooooooooooomiiiiiiiiiii."

The sudden noise so close to her shocked Yomi, and she jumped back almost far enough to collide with her fallen chair, stopping herself at the last moment.

"Gahaha! Your face! Haha!" A small laughing ball lay on the floor, rolling from side to side. Tomo had tears in her eyes at the success of her rather juvinal prank, and was about to rise up for a second round of mocking when she found Yomi's face an inch from hers, glasses gleaming brightly. Then, in a burst of sound which sent Tomo's ears ringing, she said three words.

"Shut. Up. I.d.i.o.t!"

**Lunch**

Sakaki sat alone in the classroom, quietly eating her lunch. Usually Kaorin sat near her, eating in silence; Sakaki guessed the girl was as shy as she was, but she was ill today. Sakaki sighed as she looked over her classmates all eating together, when a small hand tugged on her sleeve.

"Sakaki-san?" asked Chiyo, her sweet eyes gazing directly into the other girls. Sakaki felt a blush on her cheeks rising.  
"Sakaki-san, would you like to eat with us?" Her arm flicked back, pointing at Tomo, Yomi and Chiriro, all sitting around a couple of desks.

"Ah...if you don't mind...Chiyo-chan."

A beaming, adorable smile was her reward.

"Of course not, Sakaki-san!"

As Sakaki sat down, Tomo jogged the table with her foot as she preformed one of her wild gestures.

"Yahoo! Meatballs and egg roll! Yay! Yahoo!"

This had the unfortunate implication of knocking Sakaki's food flying: the lidless box flew neatly across the floor, spilling its contents in a neat pile.

This heap would be possibly salvageable if a boy from the class hadn't then stepped on it.

Oh dear.

**Foundations**

Sakaki only vaguely heard the hurried apologies, as she was already grabbing the class dustpan and brush and doing her best to tidy up the mess. Her stomach rumbled slightly as she did so; she tried not to think about the three more hungry hours she was going to have to get through before home where she could eat.

Before she knew what was happening, another pair of hands appeared by her side, holding another brush. Yomi glanced at her and said, in a dead pan voice Sakaki guessed was caused by dealing with Tomo "You don't have to do everything by yourself, Sakaki."

Returning to her seat around the group to get her stuff before the start of next lesson, Sakaki had just turned away when Tomo tapped her on the shoulder. Turning, she saw the hyperactive girl looking ever so slightly sheepish, before a big smile went across her face and she grabbed Sakaki's hand.

"Ehh, don't worry about it!" She said, slipping something wrapped in a cloth into Sakaki's hand. "You don't worry about it, do you Sakaki-san?"Sakaki shook her head in the negative, then Tomo continued. "Great! Nothing to worry about then."

Exactly what was inside the cloth Sakaki didn't get to see then, as Yukari strode into the room in characteristic bad temper, and called for all to enter their seats.

Around half way through the lesson, Sakaki risked it and opened the bundle, hidden behind her propped up English textbook.

There, lying in the red fabric, was a meatball and an eggroll. She glanced over at Tomo, who, guessing correctly what she had done, gave her the thumbs up, and gestured her to eat the snacks, Tomo's favourites.

Sakaki bit into the two items with relish, still hungry from not getting lunch. She gave a nodded thanks to Tomo, who gave another thumbs up before Yukari hit her with the chalk.

The day continued on normally, but Sakaki left school with a light heart. It was only a little, but the foundation of friendships, something she had few of in middle school, were definitely forming, with little acts of kindness.

She thought high school was going to be good.


	4. Year 1 April 4

**Did they?**

It was a slightly chill April day. Yomi and Tomo walked home side by side, chattering about this and that. Their bags were lumbered down with homework, at least Yomi's was: around half of Tomo's had vanished under mysterious circumstances (she never did find out how that bin got there) in the five minutes between leaving the classroom and leaving the school site. Tomo was unusually quiet today, a state that worried Yomi. As such, she was relieved when Tomo finally opened her mouth.

"Hey, Yomi? Are we the only ones from middle school who got into this school?"

Stopping, Yomi put her hand under her chin and gave the matter some thought.

"Hmm...I don't think so. Isn't Aki-san in class 4?"

"Aki? That little annoying know it all? Should have known she would get in."

"Says the one who always sucked up to her."

"Pah, that's all in the past now."

"Is it now?"

"Yep. Now I'm sucking up to Chiyo-chan!"

A glimmer passed over Yomi's glasses.

"Swapping one little know it all for another are you?"

Tomo shook her head.

"Nah, there's one crucial difference."

"What's that then?"

"I actually like Chiyo-chan."

**Location, Location.**

"Did Kurosaki get in?"

Yomi shook her head.

"No. He was really upset about it." She sighed. "I heard his parents shouting at him as we left the hall, poor guy."

"Bleh. They always were pushy buggers right? Glad my parents aren't like that."

"Tomo, I don't think your parents would care if you ran off with a bearded lady to start a circus in Moscow."

"Ehh? Moscow? Where the heck is that?"

"You didn't do well on the Geography exam did you?"

"Nope!"

**In Denial.**

"Yomi, you liked Kurosaki-kun didn't you?"

Shrugging, Yomi replied "Yeah, he was alright. Why?"

"You know why. You know how you liked him."

"Tomo, are you still trying to guess who I fancied in Middle school? I already told you it was Ishikawa-sensei."

"Liar!" shouted Tomo, spinning around and pointing her finger at Yomi. "No one in their right minds would fancy a guy like him!"

"Whatever Tomo." Came the reply, brushing her off casually.

"I don't care what you say Yomi! That's a lie, a lie lie lie lie told by a lying liar!" Tomo was dancing around the pavement now, pointing at her with both hands as she continued to yell. "Tell me who it really was! Tell me! Tell me!"

"I already did. You didn't believe me." Yomi strode ahead off, ahead of her friend who was now sulking on the floor and muttering "liar, liar" under her breath. "Come on now, or I'm leaving you behind."

"Aah! Wait up, you lying liar!"

"Stop calling me that!"

**Too shocking.**

"Yomi? Yoooomiii?"

...

"Come on Yomi, talk to me! Come on, it's boring..."

"...."

"I won't say you fancied Kurosaki anymore."

"...he."

"Ah! You smiled, I'm off the hook!"

"It doesn't work like that, Tomo."

"Aha! That's more like my dear friend Yomi!"

"Eh, shut up already Tomo." It was a half hearted reply though, she didn't really want to stop talking.

They walked on in companionable chattering for awhile. As they turned into a neatly cleaned street, with blossom trees just starting to bud, Tomo muttered about not being bothered to walk any further and sat down on a bench slightly off the path. She tilted her head back and started making strange noises with her mouth. Yomi grinned and sat down next to her, head forwards, chin leaning on her hands.

"Hey, Yomi?" said Tomo, head still leaning back. "Do you reckon Kurosaki knows I got in when he didn't?"

"Probably not, and it's best not to tell him."

"Hey, what's that supposed to mean?"

Yomi grinned wider and pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose.

"The shock at finding you beat him would probably give the poor guy a heart attack."

**No way.**

When Yomi had told her this, Tomo stayed leant back, umming and erring. Finally she swung back up with characteristic energy, and beamed into Yomi's face.

"Do you have Kurosaki's number?"

Yomi glanced sideways at the girl in annoyance.  
"No. Why would I? And why do you need it?"

"I want to tell him, and you always have the numbers of the people you stalk."

"Shut. Up."

"Ah! Don't tell me I was right!"

"DOUBLE CHOP!"


	5. Year 1 April 5

Not Good.

"Huah...huah....huuuuahhhh......chehh..." Chiyo's breathing was deep and rough as she stumbled off the running track. Bending at the waist, she put her hands on her knees and took great lung fills of air. Noticing this, Kaorin walked over and handed her a half filled bottle of water.

"Is sport not your forte, Chiyo-chan?"

After a brief bout of coughing and spluttering, the small girl looked up.

"Not really...huah...."

Kaorin rubbed her on the back sympathetically.

"Yeah, I never was that good at it either." She glanced over at the track. A slow grin lit up her face.

"Well Chiyo-chan, I guess you're not the only one that can't do sport."

"Huh? What are you talking abo-oh."

"Huah, huah, huah...."

"Hang in there Tomo! Just a few more meters to go!"

...

"Tomo-chan does know that she'll be able to make it more quickly if she stands up right Kaori-san?"

"I'm not sure she does..."

**Cheater.**

"Okay everyone! A short quiz to start off with." Said Yukari as she passed around the papers. "I'll just be...marking work. Yeah. Marking work." Looking around the room, she sighed. "Get to it already!"

As the room descended into silence other than the marking of pens, a number of students were thinking something along the lines of `This seems harder than usual...`.

Some went further, and thought `This seems more like the one that wasn't done by Yukari-sensei..."

However, everyone, when they saw Yukari screw up her hair and mutter dark words guessed that she was doing it with them. Everyone, except-

"How you doing, Chiyo-chan?"

"Ah, sensei. Isn't this supposed to be an individual test?"

"Eh, doesn't matter. Can I see what you've written, please?"

"Ah? But..."

"Come on Chiyo-chan, move your arm!"

"Your arm. Move it. Now."

**Turnabout is fair play.**

"Okay, okay, I'm going to take the register now, so shut up the lot of you. Oyama?"

"Here!"

"Tomo."

"Here Yukari-chan!"

"Yomi...Nyamo...Chiyo...Sakaki..." She continued down the register, before pausing and running her eyes back along the class. "Nyamo, what the hell are you doing in my class?"

The PE teacher smiled and waved her hand.  
"Well, you thought you could just drop in on my PE group, so I thought fair's fair! Besides, I need to work on my English anyway..."

"Get out! Get out get out get out!"

"What? But-"

"I don't care what I did Nyamo, turnabout is not fair play!"

**Real Reason.**

"Okay Yukari. I admit it, that was a lie. I'm not really here to improve my English."

"Haha, thought as much! No PE teacher is going to go about improving their knowledge, that's for sure!"

"Ahem. Anyway, the reason I am here is because you have been ignoring me all lunchtime when I have been trying to give you this back."

"Ah! Is that? Could it be?"

"Yep. You left your wallet at my house the other day. Here. Take it."

"Yahoo! I thought I'd lost it! Thank you Nyamo!"

"Fine fine. Just get on with the lesson okay?" said the PE teacher, walking out the door.

"Hehe..." Yukari grinned as she opened the leather wallet, a grin that fell from her face faster than a chronically depressed lemming off a cliff near a camera man. "Goddamnit Nyamo, where's my twenty thousand yen?"

The class could hear vague responses about her spending it on the night's drinks, and even vaguer responses about how it was Nyamo's turn to pay. Chiyo was the one to vocalise their thoughts.

"She's forgotten us hasn't she?"


	6. Year 1 April 6

**NOTE: Words actually in English are written like **_this_. **They are speaking in Japanese.**

**Never ever.**

"Yomi?"

"Yeah Tomo?" replied her friend, sitting next to her under a blossom tree. The petals had just started to come out, and the warm spring air was making them both sleepy.

"What the hell did that english song Yukari was singing mean? That `_Drip drip drop April showers_` thing?"

Yomi gave this due thought, which took a while in her state.

"Well, _April_ is English for the month we are in now right?"

"Is it?"

"Tomo, do you ever listen in English class?"

"Nope! That's your job!"

**Work it out!**

Yomi pinched the edge of her nose hard and shook her head.

"Tomo, what I am going to do with you?"

"I dunno."

"I know you don't know idiot! That's why I need to work it out because you aren't going to!"

"Hahaha? You, work it out! Not likely! Idiot! Idiot! Idiot!"

"Just...shut up."

"Idiot! Idiot!"

"Tomo...."

"Okay, I'll shut up."

Yomi breathed a sigh of relief and leaned back on the grass.  
"Finally..."

"If you work out what the hell an _April shower_ is."

"Knew it wouldn't be that easy."

**A shower**

Sighing, Yomi pulled her English translation dictionary out of her bag and began flipping through the pages.

"A _shower_ is...a shower."

"You serious? A _shower_ is a shower?"

"That's what it says." She said, shutting the book and putting it back in the leather schoolbag.

"Man, that doesn't make sense at all..."

Yomi looked over at Tomo sharply, in case she was going to show yet more misunderstandings of say, her own language.

"I mean, is an April shower a shower that only happens in April now? Do the English only have it in April? Man they are unclean."

"Don't be like that Tomo. It's probably just a saying, like having a cat's tongue or something. Shower probably has some slang meaning in English."

"That's a dumb explanation Yomi. I prefer mine!"

"Yeah, you would."

"Blegh, Yomi's mean. Mean mean mean....ooh!"

"What the hell is it now Tomo?"

"It's raining." Said Tomo, as a second drop of water ran through the tree leaves and landed on her head next to the first.

"So it is."

**Beautiful.**

Calling it rain would be an overstatement. It was a fine drizzle, that lasted only for a few minutes, before it hurtled onwards, carried by a brief but sudden gust of wind. Still, it was enough to Yomi want to leave for shelter, an idea not made easier by her friend's refusal to move.

"Come on Tomo! My glasses are getting soaked, I can barely see."

"Why?"

"Damnit Tomo, because it's raining!"

"Why is that a reason to leave?"

"Because...oh."

Yomi followed where Tomo's finger was pointing, through a gap in the tree branches surrounded by pink flowers, their colours magnified by the droplets of water left by the rain. All seemed much brighter: the leaves were a far more vivid green than she remembered, and the flowers looked like someone had spilt pastel colours over the tree. Beyond that, a great rainbow arched its way through the sky, contrasting with the blue of the air and the white of the clouds. The sight of it was enough to make Yomi's breath catch in her throat. She lowered the hand that was wiping away the water from her glasses. The rain had stopped now, moved on by the wind.

"It's beautiful."

"Ain't it though?"

"Tomo?"

"Yeah Yomi?"

"Let's stay. Just a while long."

"Yeah, let's."


	7. Year 1 April 7

Note: This is my last drabble (drabble by itself, I have writers block and seven more to go before I let myself move on) for two weeks, as I am going to France with no internet access, or indeed access to a computer to use it with. The Heart of Azumanga Daioh will pick back up in two weeks time, once I return

**Bet on it!**

The chime of the school bell marked the beginning of lunch. Generally regarded by the students as a good thing, and today will not break that happy mean.

The first thing Tomo said during this time was "I'm gonna get some bread for lunch!" , said as she charged out the classroom door.

"Ah! Tomo!" Chihiro shouted after her. "Can you get me some as well if I give you the money?"

Tomo stuck her head back round the door, tongue lolling out of her mouth.

"Wha? Get your own, lazy!"

"But-"

"Chihiro, you're doing it wrong." Said Yomi, placing her hand on the other girl's shoulder. "Tomo! I bet you would never get both me and Chihiro sandwiches for lunch!"

"What was that Yomi? A challenge I hear?"

"Yes. And I bet you'll take more than five minutes to get them as well, stupid Tomo."

"You do huh? Well I'll show you! I'll show you all!"

Yomi sighed as the sound of Tomo charging away echoed down the corrider, then turned to Chihiro and smiled.  
"I've done this nearly ever day so far, and she still hasn't remembered to actually set a term for the bet before dashing off."


End file.
